Strong and Moving!

Good movie but grossly overrated

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

If not for the title, I would barely have recognized LeGuin's book. The story and characters have been dumbed down so much they barely exist. There's no development of either plot or people. There's no hint of motivation for any character, especially Dr. Haber: no interior monologue, no back-story. There's no tension, either between characters or in the society. The actors appear to be sleepwalking (except for David Straithern, wonderful as always as Manny). The script is so bland, it could have been computer generated. I can't believe Brcce Davison, who was in the wonderful 1980 version, or LeGuin would have allowed this travesty to be made -- they turned a brilliant book into a chick-flick. Blech.

I've read "The Lathe of Heaven" twice and seen the 1980 version once. I loved the book but wasn't thrilled with the first film version. I'd thought that with all the new technology available to filmmakers that this latest version would be a huge improvement. WRONGO!!! This latest film version seems to go out of its way to strip away everything, EVERYTHING that was interesting about the book and the original film version. Here, George Orr seems to be nothing but some kind of paranormal fashion designer and interior decorator. He wakes up from his dream to find that everyone has better clothes and a more upscale decor. In fact, it seems that all imagination and budget went into costume and set design, both of which are quite good. Unfortunately, that is the ONLY good thing I can say about this movie. Read the book.

The book and previous film aside.. this is just plain dreadful. It's slow, tired, wooden with nothing of real interest cropping up anywhere in the film. I'm sorry to say that I watched all of it - but I was in continual hope that there was going to be something better happen any second.The premise seemed interesting, it's just a shame that what was such a good idea is closer to having nails pulled when watched. There's just no reason for anyone to feel anything for the characters, there's nothing there to give someone chance to identify with them. All in all it presents itself as a very sterile film, with each seprate scene seeming so forced as to jar the nerves. The hero of the piece, if you can call him that, just mopes around looking miserable and inefectual, and all in all it just bites. There's no real reason for anyone to want the characters to succeed or fail.. and in general there's not a lot of interest in the whole film. There are no scenes that are just good to look at, no memorable pieces of dialouge or memerable characters... fairly pointless all around in fact.Avoid.

Better-acted, with production values out of proportion to the actual money spent, it seems to me to hit much closer to the sense of the novel than the 1980 PBS version starring Craig Wasson. This ranks with Gilliam's _Brazil_ as an example of line-art science fiction film-making, as simple and inexpensive elements are combined to create a sense of otherness that shifts in subtle ways from scene to scene as George's dreams change the world around him. (Note especially the use of Audi's futuristic A2 model to stand in for a "car o' the future", and the raincoats assembled neatly from tire inner-tubes.) The techniques are often mis-used, much as impressionism was appropriated to serve the sofa-art industry; but here, it's a genuinely skilled execution on limited resources.